Sony in Japan today officially announced Sony’s new Xperia Tablet Z tablet. The tablet is tipped to enter the Japanese market this spring and promises to be semi-rugged.

The tablet promises to be waterproof and dustproof while being impressively thin at 6.9 mm thick (thinner than the anorexic iPad mini). Sony also says the tablet is light at about 495 g. The Tablet Z will have a 10.1-inch screen sporting WUXGA resolution using the Mobile Bravia Engine 2 for high-quality images.

The new tablet will have an 8.1 megapixel camera using an Exmor R CMOS sensor. The fancy camera on the tablet is able to automatically recognize the scene and adjust exposures automatically so they come out with high quality in dark. The camera also has an Auto Low Premium feature that selects optimal settings automatically for the best images in dark environments.

The Xperia Tablet Z features S-Force Front Surround 3-D virtual sound technology, and has integrated Near Field Communication technology allowing users to share photos and video with other Xperia smartphone and tablet users at the touch of a button. This NFC transport feature can also be used to share music.

Other hardware features of the tablet include Android 4.1 and a quad-core 1.5 GHz processor. The tablet also has integrated LTE technology and will be available in black or white colors. Pricing is unannounced at this time.

Sony also recently revealed its gorgeous Xperia Z smartphone which features a 5” 1080p display.

"There's a huge quality gap in productivity and other types of tablet apps as well."Small gap. You also tend to forget, that Apple devs, when redesigning apps to go from iPhone to iPad are going from 3.5 inches to 9.7 inches. A big difference than Android going from 4.7 to 7 in alot of cases, to 9-10 in others... Totally redesigning all apps isn't needed and your preception on this is HIGHLY skewed toward Apple. I am not saying app selevtion and quality isnt better on IOS, but its not THAT much better, regardless of how you think it is. IF you are a tablet gamer, then yes... Then again, if you are a "tablet gamer" I suggest you get your head examined, becasue none of them are any good at all.

Nonsense, there are excellent RTS games like Autumn Dynasty. The Room is an amazing puzzle game. One of the best games from last year, The Walking Dead, is great on the iPad, and a quarter of its sales were on iOS. Baldur's Gate, a classic, just got released. One of the best PC games from 2011, Frozen Synapse, is getting released soon. FTL: Faster Than Light, another of the best PC games from last year, should also be out on iOS soon.

And if we're talking about board game then that's a whole other thing. Ascension, Ticket To Ride, Magic The Gathering, these are all amazing games that I discovered on iOS and now play IRL. Agricola, one of the best board games ever, is coming out this Spring. Again, lots of great stuff.

quote: A big difference than Android going from 4.7 to 7 in alot of cases, to 9-10 in others... Totally redesigning all apps isn't needed

And this idea is why tablet apps on Android continue to be inferior. A redesign is required when changing sizes. Rescaling UI elements and rearranging them (single column for a phone vs two or three columns for a tablet) are so important even when going to something as small as a 7" display. You have extra space, take advantage of it, that's the whole point of a tablet.

"Nonsense, there are excellent RTS games like ....... coming out this Spring. Again, lots of great stuff."

I am not saying there arent good games, I am saying as a gaming platform ALL tablets suck. Not because of power or screen, but because the touchscreen is a crappy interface for gaming. It makes it suck, so it doesnt surprise me, that even with all those great games, and that great GPU to puch them, its only 20% of the apps rev. Gaming just sucks on tablets and phones. At best they get "Well, its good for a tablet", but PC and consoles totally smoke it by a huge margin, so most people, when they have time to game, use the better platforms.

"And this idea is why tablet apps on Android continue to be inferior."

Again, you are over-stating the issue and putting WAY too much on something that isn't a big issue. Yes, better on IOS, but not immensely.

Not true, there are certain games where touch is actually preferable to a mouse and keyboard. This is coming from someone who played in a Quakeworld clan and currently does DOTA 2 and Starcraft (both HUGE mouse+keyboard games).

The key is to have a game that is right for touch. A game that does virtual thumbsticks like an FPS or fighting game is pretty awful, but other things like board and card games are actually better via touch than via mouse. I play Magic: The Gathering, Ascension, and Ticket To Ride on tablet, and they're all better than their counterparts on PC simply because of the control. Same with other games like Hundreds, The Room, etc.

There's a new generation of deep and involving games that are built around touch, and they're really great, period, not just "great for touch".

oh man, that's the best comic series and the best tv show I've ever seen (after s3 ended I'm monitoring torrents round o'clock waiting for s4 oh man I can't wait I soo caanntt!!!), writing is above top notch, kirkman is one damn seriously gifted writer imho.

I fell in love with the franchise immediately and for me the walking dead alone is worth buying ipad for. the game is above excellent too (not graphics wise but story wise), and it would fit ipad's touch interface 100%, it's just a perfect touch game if you think about it

can't say the same about other games but walking dead is a HUGE apple's win imho. it so sad to see it released only on ios among tablets. boohoo :(((

I love that show too, but I played the game demo on the ps3 and it's kind of extremely slow and boring... it's 1 of those choose your own adventure weather like 3 text options and you get to pick 1. Lame. I am very much looking forward to the first person shooter coming out later this year on console and PC though.

It's 1 of those choose your own adventure type games where there are like 3 text options there and you get to pick 1 to proceed... Then you wait for endless cutscenes to proceed again and coose 1of 3 options and wait for cutsces again, repeat, repeat. Really lame assed game playing off the popularity of the series. If you like to watch cutscenes and not actually play, then it's a good game, lol. It does lend it self towards tablets pretty well since there's not much interfacing it's mostly watching cutscenes

I wouldn't call interactive game where the plot depends on your decisions a boring and lame one. Sometimes it requires a quick decision giving you just two seconds to decide what to do when a walker suddenly attacks or whatever. I've been through some adrenaline moments in this game and a few were quite scary. Not Dead Space or Amnesia level of fright but very good for a small TV series based game. Some moments were quite painful and hard to play through, especially in the last episode when you can "save" a girl from a massive walker assault only by shooting her in the head. I made a poor choice by letting her live two minutes more by lowering my rifle and getting up on the truck and escaping into pharmacy, and then after listening to her agony screams and walkers gurgling while devouring her alive I was really hating game sound designers for making it too natural and too life like. So I can't say this game is anywhere near slow and boring, it's very opposite from boring, although it is slow to pick up in the beginning, I agree. But it grows on you just like Amnesia, which was also slow in the beginning. Heck, even Dead Space had quite lengthy intro, it wasn't like you were hacking and slashing necros the moment you start the game. Doom 3 also had lengthy intro, and many other horror/survival games too. You need a proper atmosphere, a proper build up to suck you in slowly. Without it the game does indeed gets boring fast.

I'm a huge proponent of gameplay mechanics over cutscenes and story and I'm not a huge adventure game guy.

The Walking Dead beats all those trends, it is amazing. Episode 1 is probably the weakest of the bunch, I suggest playing through episode 2 to make a decision. Episode 4 and 5 are absolute gut punches, excruciating and so good.

It is easily one of the top 5 games I played last year and it landed on a ton of other top ten lists. Again, absolutely amazing.

quote: can't say the same about other games but walking dead is a HUGE apple's win imho. it so sad to see it released only on ios among tablets.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, where there's smoke there's fire, choose your metaphor. :)

The point is that this one example is typical for iOS applications. Forget games or other game genres, the same applies to applications across the board whether they be creative or for productivity. In the end it affects choice, and you get the best choice of applications in iOS.

Again, this comes down to an app developer that wants to 1) make something great 2) make money and 3) not spend the rest of their life fixing bugs.

A post from a friend of mine that develops a major application that is on Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone: "Developing for Android is a nightmare, you don't make as much money, and unless you write a bunch of custom controls or get involved in OpenGL the visuals will perform poorly even though the device may dwarf an older iPhone in power."

"Also, you cheapskate! This hardware looks great but then you have a bone to pick about it possibly being $500, ridiculous."

Like I said, I really don't care about money, I do pretty well for myself, but I dont want to waste money either. I want the best thing I can get... But if looking at a 10 inch tablet, for myself, or as a recomendation for someone else: If this Sony is $500 and the iPad is $500 and the Nexus 10 is $400, I would have a hard time recommending that anyone buy the Sony, even though it looks nice. For a gamer, or a person that already has a ton of IOS apps, the iPad wins, for someone that just wants a good tablet with great res and the best OS, the Nexus wins... The Sony , since its waterproof only wins for people that bring their tablet to the Beach LOL.